Born in Alabama in 1949, Sandra Sider was raised
in Western North Carolina in a family of longtime Appalachian quilt
makers. After moving to New York City in 1979, she began to combine
photographic techniques, especially cyanotype and photo transfer, with
machine-quilted constructions. Since the mid-1980s, most of her work
has focused on art quilts incorporating photography, as she has personalized
and developed various approaches to images in textile assemblage. Formal
training in studio art was via classes and workshops at the School of
Visual Arts and Manhattan Graphics Center. Her art quilts are in several
public and private collections; they have been published nationally
in books and art journals. Sider's essays on art quilts usually are
published by Fiberarts Magazine. She founded the Fine Focus biennial
competition and co-founded the new biennial Quilt 21: American Art Quilts
for the 21st Century. The artist is a professional member of Studio
Art Quilt Associates, Manhattan Quilters Guild, Art Quilt Network/New
York, and the Surface Design Association.

Click on images for larger view

Step Right Up!40"w x 53" h
1999

Selected for Pieceworks: Art Quilts
at the Sedgwick 2001, a national juried competition on view March 30-April
29. Catalog available on CD-ROM.

detail

The image here is of High Bridge, an historic New
York aqueduct. Step Right Up! consists of a single photograph showing
the Manhattan end of the bridge, with steel doors sealed shut and spikes
projecting to the sides to prevent access to the bridge. Replicating
the one photograph in both positive and negative images, and in mirror
image, I transformed this forbidding structure into an inviting garden
pathway, inviting the viewer to "step right up" and enjoy
this marvelous historic monument.

Materials and techniques:
photo transfers on cotton, embellished with hand embroidery and paint,
machine pieced, polyester batting, cotton backing, machine quilted.
The purple stamp-painting was done with the hiking boots I wore while
photographing High Bridge.

Red River is reminiscent of trading
blankets from the American West, an important commodity during the days
of westward expansion. The actual Red River, which rises in north Texas,
flows more than 1000 miles through Arkansas and Louisiana into Mississippi.
This quilt uses the name of the river to commemorate the struggles of
18th- and 19th-century America, during which times many of our rivers
ran red with blood.